The Elizabethan table at Hardwick Hall, known as the Eglantine Table, was manufactured in the later 1560s, probably in London. It provides a unique and detailed visual record of contemporary wind and stringed instruments. The Table was cleaned and restored in the 1990s and may therefore be seen today in something much closer to its original glory; nonetheless, no comprehensive visual record of the marquetry on the surface has ever been published, and it has never been systematically studied. This book, with essays by an international team of contributors, is designed to fill that gap. It contains a full-colour record of the Table, with individual chapters on all of the fifteen instruments shown including violins, a lute, a harp, a cittern, a guitar and various woodwind and brass.

Here is a link to the publisher’s page.

A new book on Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages was published in honour of Christopher Page. For more information see here or here.

Editors are Tess Knighton and David Skinner. Contributors: Elizabeth Aubrey, Anna Maria Busse Berger, John Caldwell, Alice V. Clark, Lisa Colton, Lawrence Earp, Mark Everist, David Fallows, Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Andrew Kirkman, Elizabeth Eva Leach, Marc Lewon, Jeremy Montagu, Keith Polk, Reinhard Strohm, Rob C. Wegman, Crawford Young.

Consortium member Richard Savino is delighted to announce that Naxos has chosen his latest recording as their featured international release for April. It concerns Archivo de Guatemala – Music from the Guatemala City Cathedral Archive, including compositions by Castellanos, Durón, García de Zéspedes, Quiros, and Torres. Richard Savino (guitar) is joined by his ensemble El Mundo. More information here.

Taro Takeuchi plays solo lute music on a recently discovered, original and rare, Regency lute made by Joseph Buchinger, London c.1800, loaned by the Butcher Row House Museum in Ledbury, Hertfordshire.
Music by Mozart, Haydn, Pleyel, Voyer and others including marches, dances, airs and a rare solo sonata all from the original published sources for the Regency lute.

The recording is available at: http://tarolute.crane.gr.jp/cdaffect.htm

The Consortium for Guitar Research at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, is offering an annual Research Prize of £200 for original research into the history of the guitar, or closely related plucked instruments, during the period 1540-1940. Entries from scholars, performers, instrument makers and collectors are invited. The research must be previously unpublished, and may take the form of an article (maximum length 5000 words), a report on work in progress or any other form which the competitor finds useful for the best presentation of new facts, thoughts or findings, The judges would welcome (but do not insist upon) the inclusion of photographs, diagrams, images, and short audio or audiovisual recordings. A complete video presentation (not exceeding fifteen minutes in length) may be presented instead of formal written work, perhaps submitted as an unlisted link on YouTube or Vimeo. Other solutions may be possible. (NOTE: Videos of performances must include a substantial element of explication or commentary).

Submissions must be in English. The opening date for submissions is 15 April 2021, the closing date is 5pm, 15 September 2021. The winning entry will be announced at midday on 7 January 2022. The decision of the judges, drawn from members of the Consortium, is final. Submissions should be sent to Researchprize2021@gmail.com and accompanied by a short
synopsis not exceeding 200 words. Entry is open to everyone (no age limit), except for full members of the Consortium (members of the Consortium’s Cohort wing may apply).

The Consortium for Guitar Research, an affiliate of the Royal Musical Association of Great Britain, now invites applications from guitar researchers, at an early stage of their work, for a Fellowship in memory of Dr. Andrew Britton. The Fellowship comes with a £500 award, thanks to the intervention of a generous benefactor, Mr Jeffrey Wells. The three-day colloquium of the Consortium, to which the successful candidate will be invited, and which he or she will be expected to attend, will run from Saturday 25 September to Monday 27 September 2021 inclusive and be based in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, England. This award provides an opportunity to share ideas with a group of established scholars in the field. See http://www.guitarconsortium.org for more information regarding the Consortium and its members.

The recipient will give a 30 minute paper, in English, at the Consortium conference and will subsequently be asked to prepare a succinct report on their work for placing on the Consortium’s website.

Applicants are invited to submit their CV, and a separate 400 word (maximum) statement describing their latest research and explaining why this award would be useful to them. Please send applications via email, in a Word or PDF document, to Dr James Westbrook j@theguitarmuseum.com by Sunday 2 May 2021. The successful candidate will be notified by Sunday 16 May 2021 and will be asked to accept the place by Tuesday 1 June 2021. It is the responsibility of the candidate to ensure any necessary visas are in place.

Dr Andrew Britton was a Founding Member of the Consortium. His PhD thesis The guitar in the romantic period: its musical and social development, with special reference to Bristol and Bath is a benchmark to all new Scholars and is available online on the British Library Ethos site.

Consortium member Kenneth Sparr has just published ‘Barthélemy Trille Labarre, ‘Professeur de Guitare et Compositeur, Éléve d’Haydn’, Biography and Catalogue of Works’, in The Lute, lvi (2016), with an immense fund of new information. We are also delighted to announce a lavishly-documented article on the guitarist Vidal, by Consortium member Damián Martín Gil, entitled “‘The Famous Vidal’: New Light on the Life and Works of a Guitarist in Eighteenth-Century France”, just been published in Eighteenth Century Music, 18/1 (2021), 123-149.

The latest issue of Soundboard Scholar (nr 6, 2020), the only peer-reviewed journal of guitar studies, published by the Guitar Foundation of America, includes two articles by members of the Consortium and an excellent  review of the recent book on the guitar in Finland by one of our newly elected members, Jukka Savijoki. The articles are by Erik Stenstadvold, “Sor’s Guitar Music—a Fresh Start”, presenting the background to his new edition of Sor’s works for guitar, and Damián Martín Gil, “Unraveling the Discussion entre les Carulistes et les Molinistes (Paris, 1828)”.  The review of Jukka’s book So that the Soul Would Dance in You is by Kenneth Sparr. The issue can be ordered here. Articles can be ordered here.

With the publication of The Guitar in Georgian England: A Social and Musical History (Yale University Press, 2020)  Christopher Page has completed the trilogy of books on the guitar in England he began in 2010.

More information can be found here.

We are delighted to announce the election of six new members to the Consortium:  Jan van Cappelle, Sarah Clarke, Nicoletta Confalone, Damián Martín, Samantha Muir and Jukka Savijoki. See the Members page.

The 2020 Andrew Britton Fellowship winner is Damián Martín Gil. Damián (b. 1978) earned a Diploma in Classical Guitar (2002), BA in Physical Education (2002) and MA in Classical Guitar Performance (2008). He won the first prize at the “Young Performers of Extremadura” competition in 2001 and has obtained grants from institutions such as Junta de Extremadura, Caja Badajoz, Fundación Antonio Gala and The Research Council of Norway.

Since 2010 he has been teaching guitar at the Conservatory ‘Hermanos Berzosa’ in Cáceres (Spain). He is presently also completing a master’s degree in historical musicology at La Rioja University (Spain) with a thesis analyzing the guitar technique in Paris in the times of La Guitaromanie.

His articles have been published in leading guitar journals such as Il Fronimo (Italy) and Soundboard Scholar (USA). He has also presented papers at various international conferences including the Lake Konstanz Guitar Research Meeting, the Norwegian Guitar Conference in Oslo and the ‘Norba Caesarina’ Guitar Festival (Spain).

This year’s competition drew excellent candidates from many countries, including Guatemala, America, and Israel. each submitting a wide range of research proposals. Damián will give a paper at the next Consortium meeting in April 2020.